A Child
by Raven Silversea
Summary: The war is over. Voldemort is dead. And Harry takes a moment to confront Dumbledore's portrait


The Headmaster's office is still just as clean as Harry remembers it, and something in him snarls at that. He runs his fingers through his hair. Gray dust falls from his hair and onto his shoulders. His muscles ache because no matter how many wands they had, it still wasn't enough to clear the hallways of debris, and they were still searching, in vain at this point he knows, for survivors. Here, everything from the trinkets to the furniture to the portraits is in place, untouched. Even the carpet isn't torn, and Harry's half-tempted to fix that.

The portraits on the walls silently watch Harry as he slowly walks towards the ornate Headmaster's desk. He takes the long way, meandering around the room and occasionally picking up trinkets. Rolling them around in his hand for moment, he puts the trinkets down again. Which ones kept track of the blood wards around Number 4? he wonders. Had any of them ever served that purpose? Harry sighs and slides his hands into his jacket pockets; his fingers grab at days old grit. Looking at the golden framed portrait behind the Headmaster's chair, he asks, "What was the point?"

The question hangs in the air for a moment. The portrait of Albus Dumbledore blinks. "I'm afraid I don't understand your question, my boy," he says, shifting in his throne-like seat. "The point of what exactly?"

Harry shrugs. "My entire school career? Or rather, the lack thereof?"

"Why to win the war, of course." The portrait looks astonished as if he didn't expect to ever have to answer the question. "You heard the same prophecy I did, Harry. You were destined to kill Voldemort, and you have." The portrait smiles down at Harry gently. "That was the point of it all."

"And either must die at the hands of the other," Harry quotes as he wags his head from side to side with a sneer. He sighs loudly and throws his hands up in the air. Pacing in a circle, he clenches and unclenches his fists several times at his sides before looking back up at the portrait. "So, you're telling me that all those prophecies in the Department of Mysteries came true? Every last one of them?"

The portrait looks off to the side as at least one former headmistress scoffs and shakes her head. Dumbledore's portrait plucks at his colorful robes.

"That many, huh?" Harry rolls his eyes and stops his pacing. Crossing his arms across his chest, he glares at the portrait, and his lip thins. "Glad to know you put everything on a prophecy that may not have actually come true at the expense of my childhood."

"If you are referring to your adventures-"

"Near death experiences? Yeah, I am actually."

"They made you stronger. Strong enough to defeat Voldemort." The portrait frowns at Harry as if Harry was a reckless student still and Dumbledore was still alive to herd him to the correct path.

"I was a _child_," Harry snaps. His knuckles turn white as his fingernails dig into his sleeved arms. His hair blows back in the magical wind stirred up from his rage, and the other portraits eye him warily. "I didn't need to be stronger. I needed to be safe, and you failed, Headmaster."

Dumbledore's portrait narrows his eyes behind his half-moon glasses. "You appear to be both strong and safe. You are alive, and Voldemort is not, defeated by your hand even." He holds his hands, palms up, towards Harry. "I dare say I accomplished what I set out to do, my boy."

Harry laughs drily. "Yeah, I bet you did, and I'm going to make sure it never happens again. Because there is no reason why you put the burden of dealing with Voldemort on the shoulders of a toddler, of a _child_, like you did, Headmaster." He turns and walks toward the door.

"It was the only way!"

Harry stops with his hand on the door handle. Glancing over his shoulder with a dark glare at the portrait, he says, "No, it wasn't. You simply refused any other possible course of action." Then, having said his piece to all that remained of the man he had once followed blindly, Harry left the Headmaster's office for the last time.


End file.
